DESCRIPTION

With no arguments, existing branches are listed and the current branch will
be highlighted with an asterisk. Option -r causes the remote-tracking
branches to be listed, and option -a shows both. This list mode is also
activated by the --list option (see below).
<pattern> restricts the output to matching branches, the pattern is a shell
wildcard (i.e., matched using fnmatch(3)).
Multiple patterns may be given; if any of them matches, the branch is shown.

With --contains, shows only the branches that contain the named commit
(in other words, the branches whose tip commits are descendants of the
named commit). With --merged, only branches merged into the named
commit (i.e. the branches whose tip commits are reachable from the named
commit) will be listed. With --no-merged only branches not merged into
the named commit will be listed. If the <commit> argument is missing it
defaults to HEAD (i.e. the tip of the current branch).

The command's second form creates a new branch head named <branchname>
which points to the current HEAD, or <start-point> if given.

Note that this will create the new branch, but it will not switch the
working tree to it; use "git checkout <newbranch>" to switch to the
new branch.

When a local branch is started off a remote-tracking branch, git sets up the
branch so that git pull will appropriately merge from
the remote-tracking branch. This behavior may be changed via the global
branch.autosetupmerge configuration flag. That setting can be
overridden by using the --track and --no-track options, and
changed later using git branch --set-upstream.

With a -m or -M option, <oldbranch> will be renamed to <newbranch>.
If <oldbranch> had a corresponding reflog, it is renamed to match
<newbranch>, and a reflog entry is created to remember the branch
renaming. If <newbranch> exists, -M must be used to force the rename
to happen.

With a -d or -D option, <branchname> will be deleted. You may
specify more than one branch for deletion. If the branch currently
has a reflog then the reflog will also be deleted.

Use -r together with -d to delete remote-tracking branches. Note, that it
only makes sense to delete remote-tracking branches if they no longer exist
in the remote repository or if git fetch was configured not to fetch
them again. See also the prune subcommand of git-remote(1) for a
way to clean up all obsolete remote-tracking branches.

OPTIONS

-d

--delete

Delete a branch. The branch must be fully merged in its
upstream branch, or in HEAD if no upstream was set with
--track or --set-upstream.

-D

Delete a branch irrespective of its merged status.

-l

--create-reflog

Create the branch's reflog. This activates recording of
all changes made to the branch ref, enabling use of date
based sha1 expressions such as "<branchname>@{yesterday}".
Note that in non-bare repositories, reflogs are usually
enabled by default by the core.logallrefupdates config option.

When in list mode,
show sha1 and commit subject line for each head, along with
relationship to upstream branch (if any). If given twice, print
the name of the upstream branch, as well.

-q

--quiet

Be more quiet when creating or deleting a branch, suppressing
non-error messages.

--abbrev=<length>

Alter the sha1's minimum display length in the output listing.
The default value is 7 and can be overridden by the core.abbrev
config option.

--no-abbrev

Display the full sha1s in the output listing rather than abbreviating them.

-t

--track

When creating a new branch, set up configuration to mark the
start-point branch as "upstream" from the new branch. This
configuration will tell git to show the relationship between the
two branches in git status and git branch -v. Furthermore,
it directs git pull without arguments to pull from the
upstream when the new branch is checked out.

This behavior is the default when the start point is a remote-tracking branch.
Set the branch.autosetupmerge configuration variable to false if you
want git checkout and git branch to always behave as if --no-track
were given. Set it to always if you want this behavior when the
start-point is either a local or remote-tracking branch.

--no-track

Do not set up "upstream" configuration, even if the
branch.autosetupmerge configuration variable is true.

--set-upstream

If specified branch does not exist yet or if --force has been
given, acts exactly like --track. Otherwise sets up configuration
like --track would when creating the branch, except that where
branch points to is not changed.

--edit-description

Open an editor and edit the text to explain what the branch is
for, to be used by various other commands (e.g. request-pull).

--contains [<commit>]

Only list branches which contain the specified commit (HEAD
if not specified).

--merged [<commit>]

Only list branches whose tips are reachable from the
specified commit (HEAD if not specified).

--no-merged [<commit>]

Only list branches whose tips are not reachable from the
specified commit (HEAD if not specified).

<branchname>

The name of the branch to create or delete.
The new branch name must pass all checks defined by
git-check-ref-format(1). Some of these checks
may restrict the characters allowed in a branch name.

<start-point>

The new branch head will point to this commit. It may be
given as a branch name, a commit-id, or a tag. If this
option is omitted, the current HEAD will be used instead.

<oldbranch>

The name of an existing branch to rename.

<newbranch>

The new name for an existing branch. The same restrictions as for
<branchname> apply.